Motor Age: Do you do anything to promote preventive winter maintenance? If so, what do you do?
Holzhauser: I do promotions. I do a quarterly newsletter, and I usually catch it right before winter. I recommend fluid changes, checking the tires and making sure that stuff is ready to go. It's basic conditioning is what it is.Motor Age: What are the most frequent repairs you see in your bays?
Holzhauser: I would say it's probably drivability issues. That's probably what I see the most, stuff where it cuts out.
Motor Age: What type of new technology are you seeing on vehicles that you've had to adjust to or learn more about?
Holzhauser: The most recent thing is tire pressure monitoring. There's a lot of adjusting to things, but it depends on how many vehicles you work on. If you work on a limited number of vehicles, it doesn't seem like there's much adjustment. If you work on a wide spectrum of vehicles, there's more adjustment. I work on mostly imports, European and Japanese. The European is probably VW, Audi, and the Japanese is probably Toyota, Honda. The only domestics I get are people that own imports and want me to work on their domestics, and most of that's maintenance.
Motor Age: What's the biggest problem you're facing in your shop right now? What type of help could aid you in solving the problem?
Holzhauser: The most recent thing, and this is probably location specific, just because of where I am and the location I'm in, and it may not apply to the other parts of my state, but the biggest thing I've run into is dealers not adhering to the Magnus-Moss Act. That's really been within the last month, month and a half.
Motor Age: Are you seeing the effects of a down economy? How are you combating this?
Holzhauser: It definitely has dropped off. And as far as combating it, the only thing I can tell you, because of the reputation I have, my good customers keep coming back. That's the only thing that's keeping me from being completely dead. Between the quarterly newsletter and all that stuff, that's what keeps me going. The good customers keep me going. And it's a little harder trying to sell something extra, because everyone is concerned.
